Like Mayhew's demeanor

I like most of what Mayhew says in this article. A little less than thrilled about the management's party line that the defense is good as long as they are healthy. I disagree with this sentiment. The Lions played far better offenses in the second half and even though those offenses were missing people due to injury (as was our defense), our defense was shredded.

While I believe the Detroit defense, as constructed last year, is pretty good against average offenses, the defense is not real deep and there is little margin for error against the better offenses. I'm not looking for perfection against those offenses, just for the defense to be strong and deep enough to make some critical stops and withstand a couple of players who are missing (Delmas) or may not be playing at 100% (i.e. Houston, Durant, Fairley).

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I do think a full off season working together will really help this defense as presently constructed. However, I believe Mayhew and Schwartz both realize they need to be better and deeper. To that end I expect Mayhew to work his GM magician act between now and the opening day of training camp. In three years he's surely learned more than an ordinary house cat, and will put that to work for the Lions. Next episode is signing their ow FA to free up some revenue for signing available FA. It can't happen too quickly for me.